62 
EREOKS or THE EIEST TOITAGEES. 
the expense of El Dorado. While the latter is sometimes 
suppressed, no one ventures to touch the former,* which is 
the Eio Paragua (a tributary stream of the Caroni) en- 
larged by temporary inundations. When D’Anville learned 
from the expedition of Solano, that the sources of the 
Orinoco, for from lying to tlie west, on the back of the 
Andes ot Pasto, came from the east, from the mountains of 
Parima, he restored in the second edition of his fine map of 
America (1760) the Laguna Parime, and very arbitrarilv 
made it to communicate with three rivers, the Orinoco, the 
Eio Branco, and the Essequibo, by the Mazuruni and the 
Cujuni ; assigning to it the latitude from 3° to 4° north, 
which had till then been given to lake Cassipa. ’ 
I have now stated, _ as I announced above, tlie variable 
forms which geogi-aphical errors have assumed at difierent 
periods. I have explained what in the configuration of the 
soil, the course of the rivers, the names of the tributary 
streams, and the multiplicity of the portages, may have 
given rise to the hypothesis of an inland sea in the centre of 
Guiana. However dry discussions of this nature may ap- 
pear, they ought not to be regarded as sterile and fruitless. 
They show trayellers what remains to be discovered; and 
make known the degree of certainty which long-repeated 
assertions may claim. It is with maps, as with those tables 
of astronomical positions which are contained in our ephe- 
merides, designed for the use of navigators : the most hete- 
rogeneous materials have been employed in their construc- 
tion during a long space of time ; and, without the aid of 
the history of geography, we could scarcely hope to discover 
at some future day on what authority every partial state- 
ment rests. 
Before I resume the thread of my narrative, it remains 
for me to add a few general reflections on the auriferous 
lands situate between the Amazon and the Orinoco. We 
have just shown that the fable of El Dorado, like the most 
celebrated fables ot the nations of the ancient world, has 
been applied progressively to different spots. We have 
seen it advance from the south-west to the north-east, from 
the oriental declivity of the Andes towards the plains of 
1 o*" ‘'’® Amazon, 1680 ; De L’Isle, Amerique Mirid. 
1700. D’AnTille, first edition of Ids ‘America,’ 1748. 
